¡Gracias Funvini!

...thanks from the community of La Isla...

In 1994 Let The Children Live! started a Colombian charity called Fundación ¡Vivan Los Niņos! (Funvini). One of Funvini's first tasks was to try to find out from precisely which parts of the city most of Medellín's street-children came.

After conducting a careful survey, Fr Peter and his team at Funvini found that the neighbourhood which had produced the greatest number of street-children was a particularly poor and troubled barrio called La Isla. They therefore decided to start working with the community leaders and families there in order to try to prevent more children from La Isla from ending up on the streets.

Since then Funvini has developed very strong ties with the people of La Isla, and the charity is currently helping some 300 children there in various ways. In November 2003 the community of the barrio decided that they wanted to express their appreciation of all the support that the charity had given them over the years, so they arranged a fiesta in Funvini's honour. This was held on 9th December and began with a Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated in the parish church by Fr Peter and Fr Enrique Montes, Funvini's Vice-President .

After the Mass the children and their families produced banners and placards expressing gratitude to Funvini and accompanied an image of Our Lady of Walsingham through the streets of the barrio to the local primary school. Several hundred people assembled in the school playground and there were several lengthy speeches. Although the speakers were all very enthusiastic they were completely inaudible - but nobody seemed to mind very much! Then Fr Peter was presented with an enormous book in which the children had drawn pictures or had written about the help they had received from Funvini.

After that there was a performance by Funvini's dance group, and Fr Peter rounded off the ceremony by presenting certificates to the children who had made most progress during the year and to the adults who had been particularly supportive of the charity's work.

Afterwards Fr Peter commented, "It was good to see the affection and esteem that the children and families in La Isla have for the charity - and, of course, for our supporters of Let The Children Live! in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere who make Funvini's work possible."